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Word Count: 768

Katsuki was stuck on a line. He wasn't composing anything or any dumb shit like that— though, since it was basically Valentine's Day and everyone in his section (including (and actually especially) Racoon Eyes) was giving him shit about going out with Hairbrain during today's minimum day.

No; he was stuck on something the redheaded dumbass himself had said, and not even on purpose.

"Baku~~tsuki!"

He'd always forget that they were switching to given names in public, and then he'd switch halfway through "Bakugou" into "Katsuki" by portmanteau-ing them into something that sounded way too close to, "Baku, suki~!" which, yes, even in his fucking head sounded window-launching-out-of levels of embarrassing. The dumbass wasn't even taking Japanese, didn't even know snippets because his mothers weren't Japanese— he had no idea what the fuck he was saying. There was no way he knew he sounded like he was confessing every time he called his name.

Katsuki paced the band room floor, paying half an eye to Jirou's rant in sign language (and even less of an ear when she switched to verbal ranting), his brain doing him the wonderful courtesy of putting K— Eijirou's voice on loop with no way of turning it off. It was frustrating.

"You know, it's kind of weird, dude. I feel like I've gotten everything off my chest, and yet, I still feel stressed as fuck," Jirou said, beating a rushed rhythm onto the table to emphasize her own restlessness.

Katsuki gave her a side-eye, vaguely concerned in the way that meant he cared about her well-being, but not emotionally articulate enough to say or do anything about it. He tried (kind of) to come up with something, but then the last bell of the day rang, and fuck, man, Eijirou was going to show up at the band room doors any minute now.

He stopped his pacing to give her as sincere a look as he could muster. "Well, good luck with that," he said, heading towards his backpack.

"Where are you going?"

"Out," he replied. He didn't look at her as he slung his backpack over his shoulder, his thoughts too preoccupied to give her any other answer. That should be enough anyway, right?

"It's a minimum day. Shouldn't we be practicing?"

Katsuki pretended to stretch his arms, using it to hide the way he took his pulse to breathe in time. Someone was on fire today, weren't they? It was funny; usually that was on him. "If you were going to do that, you would have started already," he said (because even though he knew he could put off the date with Eijirou, he didn't want the other boy around as he was trying to improve his twirling; it sounded like too much of a distraction). "I have a fucking date."

Jirou huffed in irritation. "I don't know why you try so fucking hard when it's not even fucking real."

Katsuki stopped dead. A cold jolt of pure dreadful shock ran down his spine, leading the way for the slow, burning anger to seep in.

He turned around, just in time to catch Jirou mouthing something he couldn't quite catch, so he approached her, cracking his knuckles just to get out a bit of this sudden, aggressive restlessness that was possessing him. He noticed Jirou's normally dead, bored eyes blow up as wide as saucers, her pupils shrunk down to terrified little pinpricks.

So she knows she's not supposed to know, Katsuki thought, quietly grinding his molars. So, then…

"Who told you that?" he hissed, doing his best not to yell, just in case someone outside decided to pop in and question the scene.

There was a long, long pause, during which Katsuki's heart rate calmed down a bit, and he took a step back.

Jirou sighed with relief, and she took a second to shake out her hands.

"Kaminari," she signed, and the silence that came with her words hung in the air, sitting atop the tension that was already so thick, not even a knife could cut it.

Kaminari. The dumb bitch Eijirou couldn't not tell. So he was a loose-lipped loser after all, huh?

Katsuki felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Time to go.

He cracked his neck. "Don't tell anyone else," he warned Jirou, who nodded solemnly. He grunted, satisfied for now with just that.

He turned around and left the band room.

author's note xii. ahahahahaha AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. :)

tour arc starts next chapter. :)

tumblr's at a-piece-of-shipping-trash. thank you for reading, leave a review, and stay safe out there

Next Chronologically: Rhythm 11